<h2>A Turning Point</h2>
The economy is in between gears right now, and that’s a growing problem because as is true with all higher gears, we could be accomplishing so much more with so much less and prosperity could be greatly increased for not only the lucky few, but everyone. What do I mean? Well, let’s look at the gears of capitalism, of which there have so far been three, before moving on to what fourth gear is, what’s stopping us from it, and how we can achieve it.
<h2>Fourth Gear Capitalism</h2>
First gear was made possible by the invention of the steam engine, which allowed for the beginnings of industry and the bridging of great distances with trains and steam-powered ships.
Second gear was made possible by the invention of electricity, which allowed for industrialization to go into overdrive while bridging even greater distances with the telegraph and telephones.
Third gear was made possible by the invention of the computer, which allowed for full globalization and the connection of everyone to each other all over the world with information technology and the internet.
So what is fourth gear?
Fourth gear is the handing over of labor to machines, and that does not only include muscle labor as was already true in lower gears, but mental labor. It is the long-awaited freeing of humanity to pursue human interests, paid or unpaid, as payment is of less concern when machines are working for us…that is as long as we humans are earning the machines’ paychecks to purchase what they’re producing.
And that’s the rub. That’s why we’ve so far refused to shift into fourth gear capitalism, because in fourth gear, human labor necessarily becomes unnecessary. This can be an obstacle within the mind, for capitalism itself was built to combat scarcity, and the division of labor meant everyone need pull their weight so that all may survive. But each gear along the way has enabled us to do more with less energy expended, so where once a majority of humanity’s time was spent in the fields, now about one percent is.
<figure id="attachment_108556" style="width: 600px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full wp-image-108556" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2017/10/Working-Less.jpeg" alt="“" width="600" height="388" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Image Credit: <a href="http://www.fastcoexist.com/3058710/heres-why-you-should-support-a-universal-basic-income/2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Co.Exist</a></figcaption></figure>
Where once we worked 3,000 hours per year on average in the U.S. in the late 19th century, we now work 1,900 hours per year here in the early 21st century. This has always been the direction of our ultimate aim, to leverage technology so as to work less, so that we can as humans live more. And yet we are now stymieing ourselves. In the mid 1980s, we actually began working more, after reaching a low of around 1,800 hours per year. Why are we working 100 hours more per year in the U.S. despite productivity doubling in that same period of time?
<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-108557" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2017/10/Productivity.gif" alt="“" width="600" height="316" />
Known now as the Great Decoupling, our productivity entirely detached from our earned incomes in the mid 1970s, skyrocketing upwards with the advance of technology while the great majority was left behind. Where all incomes once rose with productivity, now only the incomes of those at the top do. For the rest, there is instead an increasingly dangerous cocktail of growing inequality, falling security, increasing precariousness, and an anger whose source can’t quite be pinpointed.
What’s going on? How can capitalism have created so much abundance that there are now even digital goods of zero scarcity due to infinite supply, and the entire planet is a global marketplace for goods and services, and robots are building our cars and phones, and software is providing an increasing number of services, yet capitalism itself can be argued as being responsible for actually eroding the middle class lives of hundreds of millions all over the world? What’s going on when technology is growing at an exponential rate and yet <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/07/13/middle-class-death/" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">70 percent of households in 25 advanced economies saw their earnings drop this century</a>?
<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-108558" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2017/10/global-growth.jpeg" alt="“" width="800" height="724" />
What’s going on is that we’ve conquered scarcity and yet have refused to acknowledge it. As William Gibson has said, “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.” Our world no longer physically requires everyone to work so as to successfully meet everyone’s daily demand for basic goods and services, and yet it does still require the spending of money to acquire those goods and services. Markets require money and people, and yet money isn’t getting to people. <a href="https://medium.com/basic-income/cutting-the-gordian-knot-of-technological-unemployment-with-unconditional-basic-income-e8df7f8eaa16" target="_blank" rel="&quot;noopener”">There is thus a wrench in the machinery of our own making.</a>
Just as in any manual transmission car, shifting gears requires pushing in the clutch to disengage the current gear, and whereas that’s usually something we must decide to do, in our case, technology has made that decision for us. Technology has its foot on the clutch and so here we are in a global economy that is <a href="https://medium.com/basic-income/our-paradoxical-economy-courtesy-of-technology-and-the-lack-of-basic-income-361f40051de0#.bq8f36zf1" target="_blank" rel="&quot;noopener”">paradoxically slowing down</a>, despite our being surrounded by more amazing technology at this moment than at any moment in human history.
So, what do we do?
<h2>The Fourth Great Shift</h2>
Shifting into fourth gear requires the fundamental severing of human labor and income. It critically depends on the provision of <a href="https://medium.com/working-life/why-should-we-support-the-idea-of-an-unconditional-basic-income-8a2680c73dd3#.jqpnmol5h" target="_blank" rel="&quot;noopener”">unconditional basic income</a> — a universal dividend set above the poverty line — provided to all as <a href="https://medium.com/economicsecproj/technological-inheritance-and-the-case-for-a-basic-income-ded373a69c8e" target="_blank" rel="&quot;noopener”">a birthright as the descendants of those who came before us who created the technology</a>, who paid the taxes that were put into the government-funded research that made all the technology possible, who shifted the previous gears of humanity and enabled us all to reach this point in time where we now face our next great collective choice:
Do we provide money to all unconditionally and even <a href="https://medium.com/world-economic-forum/is-the-solution-to-extreme-wealth-inequality-really-alaska-41872632960a" target="_blank" rel="&quot;noopener”">index it to productivity growth</a> so that everyone can forever purchase what the machines are producing? Or do we continue to insist that money must be earned with human labor despite existing in a world where human labor will be increasingly out-competed by machines and robots don’t buy anything?
Fourth gear capitalism is not even the great unknown we think it is. We’ve actually seen glimpses of it in action. We’ve seen it in <a href="http://www.bignam.org/Publications/BIG_Assessment_report_08b.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noopener">Namibia</a> where money was provided to all unconditionally and entrepreneurship tripled, thanks to increased abilities of both producers to produce and consumers to consume. We’ve seen it in <a href="http://www.developmentpathways.co.uk/resources/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Indias-Basic-Income-Experiment-PP21.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noopener">India</a> where money was provided to all unconditionally and entrepreneurship tripled compared to control groups. We’ve seen it in <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/hollieslade/2014/02/10/give-directlys-breakthrough-free-money-model-grows-as-evidence-mounts/#48230dc8654f" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noopener">Kenya and Uganda</a> thanks to the charity <a href="https://givedirectly.org/basic-income" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noopener”&gt;GiveDirectly&lt;/a&gt;, and we’ve seen it in &lt;a href=“http://www.scottsantens.com/guess-what-happened-when-liberia-tested-a-pilot-program-of-cash-transfers-to-the-extreme-poor&quot;">Liberia.</a>
<a href="https://www.rescue.org/sites/default/files/document/631/emergencyeconomiesevaluationreport-lebanon2014.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noopener”&gt;Lebanon&lt;/a&gt; thanks to unconditional cash transfer programs. Entrepreneurship thrives in markets with basic income operating as both startup capital and consumer spending. &lt;a href=“http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/2016/04/22/the-unconditional-basic-income-and-the-hayekian-price-system/&quot;">F. A. Hayek himself knew this</a>. <a href="https://medium.com/basic-income/why-milton-friedman-supported-a-guaranteed-income-5-reasons-da6e628f6070" target="_blank" rel="&quot;noopener”">Milton Friedman knew this</a>. Both advocated free markets. Both advocated basic income. Why? Because markets require everyone has at least some money in order to participate in them. A market full of customers without cash is like a democracy full of citizens without the right to vote.
<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-108555" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2017/10/Entrepreneurial-Effect.jpeg" alt="“" width="662" height="375" />
We even see beyond capitalism itself every time someone with the time and resources to do so, spends their time contributing pages to Wikipedia or open source code to GitHub for no money in return. We see it in <a href="http://www.scottsantens.com/youtube-intrinsic-motivation-window-basic-income" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">video after video on YouTube</a>, shared with the world for free, created by those with the time and resources to create what they wanted to create for the sake of creation. We see it whenever any <a href="http://simonthorpesideas.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/science-and-unconditional-basic-income.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">scientist</a> or inventor pours their time and resources into the next great discovery, not to get rich, but to peel back the layers of reality to show what is and what might be.
This is the power of intrinsic motivation in action, and <a href="https://medium.com/basic-income/if-we-no-longer-force-people-to-work-to-meet-their-basic-needs-won-t-they-stop-working-3996442b7585#.qm7520hse" target="_blank" rel="noopener”&gt;it far surpasses that of extrinsic motivation&lt;/a&gt;, where people only do things for external rewards like money. It’s a recognition of &lt;a href=“http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html&quot;">Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs</a> where once one’s most basic needs are met, one’s focus shifts towards meeting higher needs like social relationships, creativity, learning, and personal achievement. The removal of the daily burden of chasing survival creates an abundance of new potential within the mind, and when that happens, scarcity — humanity’s oldest enemy — is soundly defeated. <a href="http://www.harvardmagazine.com/2015/05/the-science-of-scarcity" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">No longer weighed down by scarcity, the mind shifts towards long-term thinking, and it’s even comparable to a gain of 14 IQ points</a>. Imagine what’s possible when that happens to billions of people.
<figure id="attachment_108553" style="width: 800px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full wp-image-108553" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2017/10/Maslows-Hierarchy-of-Needs.png" alt="“" width="800" height="621" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">No one stops at levels 1-2 by choice. Suicide is even a response to being stuck there. The ultimate goal for all is the top.</figcaption></figure>
We simply no longer live in a world of immutable scarcity. We live in a world of maldistributed abundance. The first three gears of capitalism made that possible. But shifting into capitalism’s fourth gear must yet be done and it must be done manually. It will not be done for us. It’s a collective decision, and just like any collective decision, it is best done democratically, not passed down from up on high, but voted up from below. We can even use our newest technologies like the internet, and smartphones, and software to empower us in inventive new ways to finally grasp that great lever of capitalism and pull it together.
And with that then accomplished, fifth gear finally becomes possible — <a href="https://medium.com/basic-income/post-capitalism-rise-of-the-collaborative-commons-62b0160a7048" target="_blank" rel="&quot;noopener”">postcapitalism</a> — the great undiscovered country of human civilization.
It is for this reason I invite you all to do your part in engaging in this collective decision and many more. Become part of the changes like universal basic income and universal health care that need to be made. Lend your voice. Lend your time. Lend your passion. Connect with each other. Connect with your representatives. Connect with ideas. Be a part of the cultural shifting of gears we need to make here in the 21st century. Be a part of humanity, and of your communities.
Engage and together we can move the world forward.

The world is ready for the next gear of capitalism.

Op-Ed: It's time to shift our society to robotic labor and a basic income

Future Society

By fundamentally severing human labor and income, society can reach fourth gear capitalism, where all members of the economy will benefit.

It’s Time to Shift Our Society to Robotic Labor and a Basic Income

We need to give our work to the machines. 

Imagine a group of five people. They have an income distribution of $10, $20, $30, $50, and $100. Someone gets <a href="https://medium.com/basic-income/inequality-and-the-basic-income-guarantee-c8f84d936640" target="_blank">the BIG idea</a> of everyone putting 40% of their money into a hat, and dividing the result equitably between everyone.
That means $4, $8, $12, $20, and $40 goes into the hat. That&#8217;s $84, which when divided by 5 is $16.80.
Another way of looking at this result is that the amounts paid were -$12.80, -$8.80, -$4.80, $3.20, and $23.20. The poorest three people paid negative amounts (negative taxation), meaning they received money, and the richest two people paid positive amounts (positive taxation), meaning they lost money.
If we add up the negative amounts and the positive amounts, we see that the poorest three received a total of $26.40, and the richest two lost that same amount. That is the amount of money that physically changed hands, even though everyone put money into the hat, and everyone got money from the hat.
Okay, so here&#8217;s the question: how much did it cost to make sure everyone received $16.80? Was it $16.80 multiplied by five, so $84? Or was it $26.40?
The answer is $26.40, which is 31.4% of $84. The true cost is less than one-third the false cost!
This math problem is what&#8217;s needed to understand the cost of basic income. Every time someone multiplies the number of people receiving basic income by the amount of basic income, they are saying the correct answer to the above math problem is $84, and that is entirely incorrect. They&#8217;re calculating the false cost. Such a mistake can also lead to assumptions of inflation, <a href="https://medium.com/basic-income/wouldnt-unconditional-basic-income-just-cause-massive-inflation-fe71d69f15e7" target="_blank">which are just as mistaken</a>.
Here&#8217;s another math problem. What is the cost to provide you $12,000 in basic income if you are asked to pay $12,000 to receive it?
The answer is $0. It carries no cost. If 1,000 people fit the exact same example, the cost is 1,000 x 0, and that&#8217;s still zero. Multiplying 1 million by 0 is still 0. That&#8217;s how zero works.
The true cost of basic income is thus the amount of money provided to net receivers, not net payers (who all cost nothing), minus the amount net receivers put into the hat.
I calculate this as <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/why-we-should-all-have-a-basic-income" target="_blank">around $900 billion in the U.S.</a> (based on $12,000 per adult citizen and $4,000 per child), and this is true for both a <a href="http://www.scottsantens.com/negative-income-tax-nit-and-unconditional-basic-income-ubi-what-makes-them-the-same-and-what-makes-them-different" target="_blank">negative income tax</a> (with a 40% clawback rate) and a universal basic income (<a href="http://www.scottsantens.com/does-basic-income-reduce-income-inequality-gini" target="_blank">with a 40% flat tax</a>).
<img src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2017/07/UBI-model-600x436.png" alt="The Cost of Universal Basic Income Is the Net Transfer Amount, Not the Gross Price Tag" /> <img src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2017/07/NIT-model-600x447.png" alt="The Cost of Universal Basic Income Is the Net Transfer Amount, Not the Gross Price Tag" />
Fun fact: <a href="http://www.basicincome.org/bien/pdf/NewsFlash3.pdf" target="_blank">Milton Friedman himself knew UBI and NIT had the same cost</a>. So does <a href="http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2016/07/a-quick-note-on-univeral-basic-income.html" target="_blank">Greg Mankiw</a>.
<blockquote>A basic or citizen&#8217;s income is not an alternative to a negative income tax. It is simply another way to introduce a negative income tax if it is accompanied with a positive income tax with no exemption. A basic income of a thousand units with a 20 percent rate on earned income is equivalent to a negative income tax with an exemption of five thousand units and a 20 percent rate below and above five thousand units. — Milton Friedman</blockquote>
However, for a cost estimate to be even more accurate, we then need to subtract out all the programs replaced by basic income, and all the tax credits replaced by basic income. That total is in the hundreds of billions of dollars range depending on the choices we make, certainly not the $3 trillion gross range or even the $900 billion net transfer range.
Meanwhile the full costs of people not having basic income, aka the costs of not eliminating poverty&#8230;?
Yeah, <a href="http://www.scottsantens.com/what-america-spends-per-citizen-per-year-40000" target="_blank">that&#8217;s well over $3 trillion</a>.
Isn&#8217;t math fun?!
With the net cost of basic income now understood, <a href="https://medium.com/economicsecproj/how-to-reform-welfare-and-taxes-to-provide-every-american-citizen-with-a-basic-income-bc67d3f4c2b8" target="_blank">here&#8217;s how I&#8217;d fund basic income in the U.S.</a>
Have a question about basic income? <a href="http://www.scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq" target="_blank">Here</a> is a list of links that answers frequently asked questions.

Sci-Fi Visions

Many people believe that the cost of a universal basic income would be the number of people who get it times the amount of the income.

The Cost of Universal Basic Income Is Less Than You Might Think

Not having a UBI costs us more money in the long run.

Advances in technology are now so visibly exponential in nature that we can expect to see a lot more milestones being crossed long before we would otherwise expect.

Deep Learning Is Going to Teach Us All the Lesson of Our Lives: Jobs Are for Machines

We’re leaving ourselves vulnerable if we insist on employment as our primary source of income.

Dollars closeup.

After years of studying basic income, below you will find what I currently believe in May of 2017 are the details of an optimally designed UBI blueprint.

How Traditional Welfare and Taxes Can Be Reformed to Support Universal Basic Income

It's entirely possible for UBI to be implemented in the US.

Team welding Robot movement Industrial automotive part in factory

Op-Ed

By simply severing the connection between income and work through the unconditional provision of an income for life always sufficient for basic needs, the fear of technological unemployment is removed. 

Technological Unemployment Is Here. Unconditional Basic Income is the Answer.

UBI could prompt a new society anchored on higher achievement and purpose — not just paychecks.

Unemployment caused by technology is said to be the Gordian knot of our century, meaning whoever can unravel that problem will rule the world.

Basic Income Could be the Answer To Unravel the Greatest Problem of Our Era

Unlike Alexander the Great, we don't need a sword to get it done.

<h2>Basic Economics</h2>
Let&#8217;s say the cost to produce a widget is $1. What&#8217;s the cost to produce 1 million widgets?
This may sound like an extremely simple word problem that even some preschoolers could solve. However, if you think the answer is $1 million, you would be entirely wrong.<figure style="width: 360px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://futurism.com/images/universal-basic-income-ubi-pilot-programs-around-the-world/"><img src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2017/01/UBI-home_v1-900x600.png" alt="Universal Basic Income: UBI Pilot Programs Around the World" ></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text center"><a href="https://futurism.com/images/universal-basic-income-ubi-pilot-programs-around-the-world/" target="_blank">Click to View Full Infographic</a></figcaption></figure>
The cost to produce 1 million widgets is far below $1 million thanks to the savings inherent in mass production. It&#8217;s a lot cheaper per something to make a lot of something, than it is to create one of it, or even a few. A couple secondary understandings extend themselves as a result of this primary understanding.
First, <a href="https://medium.com/basic-income/wouldnt-unconditional-basic-income-just-cause-massive-inflation-fe71d69f15e7" target="_blank">it&#8217;s wrong to assume that providing people with more money will necessitate rising prices</a>. Increased demand can lead to greatly increased production, which then leads to lower prices. Just how much production can be ramped up in response to increased demand is a key factor in price determination. Where supply cannot be increased, and therefore more money is chasing the same amount of goods, price increases can be expected. Where supply can be greatly or even infinitely increased, lower prices can be expected, especially where true competition exists.
Second, and I find this point extremely compelling and the real point of this post, is a recognition of our interdependence, and <a href="https://medium.com/economicsecproj/technological-inheritance-and-the-case-for-a-basic-income-ded373a69c8e" target="_blank">the collective debt we owe each other</a>. Take whatever device you&#8217;re reading these words on as a prime example. Whatever its cost to you, it only cost that because millions of others like you expressed their demand for the same device. Without everyone else, that device would have cost you ten times, a hundred times, or even a thousand times more than it would have to create just one, just for you.
In other words, we all subsidize each other. It&#8217;s kind of like every time we buy something for ourselves, everyone else is chipping in too, to make that possible. It can be compared to buying something in a store somewhere with a price tag of $1,000 that only ends up costing us $100 because 900 other people each provided us a $1 gift card to help us buy it. What we&#8217;re doing right now is spending $100 on a $1,000 item, and ignoring the $900 in help we got, pretending instead that we afforded it all on our own. We didn&#8217;t. We couldn&#8217;t. Much of what we buy only costs what it does because of so many other people buying the same thing.
Aside from this truth, when it comes to technological purchases, <a href="https://medium.com/@KellyGerling/video-review-yanis-varoufakis-basic-income-is-a-necessity-an-amazing-reframe-9951936c5c4e" target="_blank">our tax dollars paid for their research and development</a>. Our tax dollars also often pay to directly subsidize the very corporations that then turn said research funding into commercial products. Additionally, said commercial products are increasingly reliant on big data, and where does big data come from? It comes from all of us, through the actions of our daily existence.
Meanwhile, what is all of this stuff that we’re making made out of? It’s made of minerals, metals, pieces of the Earth, which in turn were forged in the explosions of stars, just like you were. Who owns that star stuff? On the one hand, no one does, and on the other hand, everyone does.
<iframe width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PArYs-fdJeM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<h2>Societal Stakeholders</h2>
In Alaska, <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/only-state-free-money-alaska" target="_blank">Alaskans are paid on average about $1000 per year for being an Alaskan</a>. Why? Because the oil companies didn&#8217;t make the oil in Alaska. They&#8217;re merely bringing it up out of the ground and processing it. The oil is considered owned by all Alaskans, and so they should as owners see some of the revenue generated by its sale.
Now apply this logic to the rest of what was not created by humankind. Apply it to what is not created by any one human individually, but everyone together, like for example land value. Take a million dollar mansion and swap it with an empty lot in the middle of the desert. The mansion becomes worth only the sum total of what its parts can sell for. The empty lot shoots up in value. Why? Because <a href="https://medium.com/basic-income/basic-income-basic-solutions-for-basic-problems-df8d629cf8b9" target="_blank">the unimproved value of land is socially created</a>. That value exists because YOU exist.
Do you see now that basic income is not &#8220;free money&#8221; or &#8220;money for nothing?&#8221; You are owed it. It is your just and due compensation as part of this interdependent system we call society. We are all stakeholders in it. We are all owed a dividend as investors.
No investor in Apple would ever be okay with being told that in return for their investment in Apple, they merely get the privilege of purchasing Apple products. Their reward is a return on their investment in the form of cash dividends. That’s fair and just. What is true for corporate stockholders should also be true for you.
Don&#8217;t accept anything less than a cash dividend for your investments in this grand organization called human civilization. Claim what you are owed and <a href="https://medium.com/world-economic-forum/why-we-should-all-have-a-basic-income-7177d5b339ec" target="_blank">demand unconditional basic income</a>. Furthermore, demand that it be indexed to rise with national wealth so as to reflect your share of rising productivity due to automation. The more labor that technology is doing for us, the higher your technological dividend should be. Nothing less is sufficient ROI.
We must recognize our profound interdependence and begin to treat each other accordingly.
Basic income is just compensation.

Money jars filled with American currency. Savings and donations concept.

Each person contributes to society just by being a part of it, we are all stakeholders in it subject to a cut of the wealth it generates.

Universal Basic Income is Not “Free Money”

In this climate, it's important that the voices of actual climate science are heard.

The immediate need for basic income in recognition of the effects of chronic stress and the importance of improving environments.

Evidence Indicates That Universal Basic Income Improves Human Health

Making a biological case for UBI.

The Olympics provides a great opportunity to take a closer look at the popular myth of meritocracy, where winners come out on top thanks to hard work and losers simply just weren’t good enough. That the discussion during this most recent Olympics has been centered so much around performance-enhancing drugs really drives this point home in a way I have not seen discussed, but I think should be, because we should really stop and question our seemingly unquestioned beliefs of a world that rewards the deserving and punishes the undeserving.<figure style="width: 360px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://futurism.com/images/universal-basic-income-ubi-pilot-programs-around-the-world/"><img src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2017/01/UBI-home_v1-900x600.png" alt="Universal Basic Income: UBI Pilot Programs Around the World" ></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text center"><a href="https://futurism.com/images/universal-basic-income-ubi-pilot-programs-around-the-world/" target="_blank">Click to View Full Infographic</a></figcaption></figure>
The truth behind contests of physical prowess like the Olympics is that they are largely a celebration of genetics. Of course hard work and access to resources are involved too, because genes can rarely be entirely independent of environment, but given two Olympians who worked exactly as hard as each other and with access to identical training and resources, then all else being equal, the gold medal will essentially be rewarding the winner’s parents. It’s one thing if our stated goal is to celebrate DNA instead of hard work, but it isn’t. We celebrate the hard work and skill that goes into winning. Or at least we say we do, but performance enhancing drugs lays bare that lie to ourselves.
Performance enhancing drugs are commonly discussed as providing an unfair advantage, and that we need to level the playing field by doing everything we can to prevent their use. However, the unpopular truth is there are cases where drugs can actually be responsible for a more level playing field, if we care more about hard work that is, instead of how genes work.
Let’s take an imaginary case of two Olympians and let’s call them Bill and Ted. Bill was born with a body whose muscle cells function at a slightly higher level than Ted’s. Bill and Ted both train incredibly hard for years, but Ted puts in just a bit more effort than Bill. In the end, Bill wins the gold medal though, not because he worked harder, but because his parents’ gametocytes together provided an advantage that Ted&#8217;s effort couldn&#8217;t overcome. No one really considers sperm or eggs as unfair advantages though, and so in this case, Bill is celebrated as a true champion.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2017/03/7046282179_622499c0c6_z.jpg" alt="" />
Now let’s imagine an alternate timeline where Ted used performance enhancing drugs, but in a way that essentially granted his muscle cells the exact same abilities as Bill’s. In such a circumstance, Ted has not given himself an advantage at all. He has simply leveled the playing field. Again, both Bill and Ted train for years, but with Ted putting in just a bit more work. This time, because their genetics are effectively identical but Ted put in more effort, Ted wins the gold. This should be considered a meritocratic outcome, but it’s not. Ted is later tested positive for drugs and his medal is stripped away. He’s not seen as a champion, but a cheater.
How odd is it that we can celebrate uneven starting points as equal, and denigrate equalized starting points as cheating? But that’s what we do, day in and day out, not only in the Olympics, but in our everyday lives. There is no level playing field. There is no meritocracy. Every day “winners” are born thanks to sperm, eggs, money, and pure randomness. Every day “losers” start races way behind the starting line, on empty stomachs, without any shoes, with weights shackled around their ankles and their bodies covered in life’s daily bruises, and when they don’t win, we look down on them for not trying hard enough.
To be clear, I’m not making an argument here for the unbanning of all performance-enhancing drugs, because it is indeed possible to go beyond leveling the genetic playing field and into the realm of uncrossable physical performance gaps regardless of any amount of skill and effort. I’m simply pointing out that this argument is more complex than “drugs are bad.” The complexity arises in acknowledging that some bodies effectively manufacture their own drugs, and without acknowledging that, we perpetuate unequal starting points and the great myth of meritocracy.
As a further example, imagine for a moment that it was considered unfairly &#8220;performance-enhancing&#8221; for an Olympic swimmer to shave their body or a wear a cap. Those swimmers who were naturally hairless, would of course have a genetic advantage, but it wouldn&#8217;t be seen that way because it was a product of genes that prevented hair, and not technology like a razor or wax. In this case, would you argue that technology could level an unlevel field, or that technology would provide an unfair advantage? What if someone had so much money they could afford the technology to alter their genes to remove their hair? Would that be cheating, or would it be playing by the rules?
We say we want a world where everyone starts on the same starting line, where no one races toward the finish line without shoes or shackles or empty stomachs, but we celebrate the crowning of those with unfair advantages as matter of course. We put our billionaires on pedestals, even when their parents were billionaires, and lie the great lie that they earned it just as if they had started with nothing.
In what world can someone like Donald Trump claim to be a self-made man who started from nothing despite <a href="http://www.politifact.com/florida/article/2016/mar/07/did-donald-trump-inherit-100-million/" target="_blank">starting with far more than most of us can even dream of</a> ever attaining in an entire lifetime of the hardest work imaginable? This world is the unfortunate answer.
However, perhaps the greatest lie of all, is how we even confuse complete randomness with what is earned and deserved. Pure dumb luck can be the difference between a gold medal and never even crossing the finish line because a bee just happened to sting you and you just happened to be allergic to bees. Random variation can be such a powerful and yet largely unacknowledged predictor of outcomes. I think one of the strongest examples of the power of randomness is revealed in a study of judges and their stomachs.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2017/03/Justice_large.jpg" alt="" />
Most of us tend to believe in a justice system where justice is served blindly. The law is the law, right? Well, it turns out that <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/04/11/justice-is-served-but-more-so-after-lunch-how-food-breaks-sway-the-decisions-of-judges/#.VQc4-OGFHm4" target="_blank">judges vary their sentences according to how hungry they are</a>.
Randomly appear before a judge right before their lunch, and you will end up worse off than had you randomly appeared before that same judge right after their lunch break, on a full and happy stomach. Recognize that and consider just how many lives have been altered based on that pure randomness. How many people got a second chance because their last name put them first? How many people were given harsh sentences because they drew the short straw?
Considering our Olympic analogy again, how many people have won medals and how many never even placed, based not on genetics, hard work, or performance enhancing drugs, but ultimately the luck of the draw?
If we truly do want a meritocracy, we need to stop lying to ourselves and recognize uneven starting lines whenever we see them. If we want the winners of races to be the ones who most “deserved it&#8221; based on effort and skill, then we should want to make sure the winners are winning because they should have won fair and square, and not because their competition had no shoes. So how can we do this?
One of the greatest steps we can take toward a more real meritocracy is to provide everyone an <a href="http://www.scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq" target="_blank">unconditional basic income</a>. The only way we can make sure winners aren&#8217;t just winning because their competition had insufficient access to resources is to make sure everyone has the same minimal access. It&#8217;s starting line logic. Just provide everyone an amount of money sufficient to eliminate poverty as a new starting line to race from. All income earned above that amount is kept so there are still winners and losers, but the winners won’t win simply because those who could have beaten them were weighed down, and the losers won’t lose simply because the race had beaten them before it even began.
There are other steps we can take to level our playing fields by increasing opportunity, and how to best go about doing so is a great discussion to have, especially during the Olympics. What kind of world do we want? Do we want a world where people can be born with nothing and achieve everything? Or do we want a world where the circumstances of our births increasingly determine the courses of our lives more than any other factor?
Do we want our champions to win on level playing fields? Or do we want our champions to be the sons and daughters of those who own our playing fields?
I offer that the answer to these questions could very likely determine the very fate of our species, for the owners can only own so much before the Olympic Games become the Hunger Games.

Universal Basic Income has the potential to increase upward mobility by leveling the playing field enough that we all can get a fair shake at prosperity.

Universal Basic Income Will Help Us Level the Economic Playing Field

How can the race to the top be fair if some begin way behind the starting line?

Universal Basic Income provides a level of safety and security that is currently unachievable in the way that society is constructed today.

/Author

Scott Santens

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